The queen of the Mur makes it four

April 18 th 2018 - 18:18

Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen has just won her fourth Flèche Wallonne in a row. The leader of Boels Dolmans Cycling Team surged 200 m before the line to drop her remaining rivals. South African Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio came in second, while American Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans Cycling Team) took the bottom step of the podium.

The race unfolded under a blazing sun, with temperatures hitting 25ִ degrees. Team Virtu Cycling's Doris Schweizer, a two-time Swiss time trial champion, broke away 30 kilometres into the race. The bunch covered 39 km in the first hour despite the hilly course. After 50 km of racing, a four-woman group consisting of Ane Santesteban (Ale Cipollini), Omer Shapira (Cylance Pro Cycling), Teresa Medvedova (BePink) and Dalia Muccioli (Valcar PBM) shot out of the peloton in pursuit of the lone breakaway. The quartet managed to close down the gap, but the entire breakaway was reeled in at the foot of the first ascent of the Côte de Cherave (km 83.5).

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot seized the opportunity to attack. The French rider's move resulted in a group of about 30 women breaking away from the peloton. A while later, another attack from the French world champion thinned down the leading group to just four women with a handful of seconds on the rest of the peloton.

Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans Cycling Team), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Canyon//SRAM), Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton Scott) and Jenneke Ensing (Ale Cipollini) crowned the Mur de Huy for the first time with 45 seconds to spare over the other favourites. However, their adventure came to an end a few hundred metres before the second and last ascent of the Mur de Huy, where Anna van der Breggen again left her rivals in the dust!

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